Lay Elders, An Important Book for You, As Defenders of Truth
The sources to which “gay Christians” constantly appeal—secular psychology, sociological data, identity theory, and the personal experiences of people who identify as sexual minorities—are not sufficient to guide us into all truth…If the Bible is God’s holy, inerrant, and clear revelation, then it is the foundation of all that we should believe and do—regardless of anyone’s contrary personal experience.
“God has always saved the church, not by theological pacifists,
but by sturdy defenders for the truth.” J. Gresham Machen
An abundance of books today addresses Christians. I just finished one—one I’m compelled to recommend every lay church elder be provided and required to read. Why emphasize “lay” elders? Throughout Church history, heresies or straying from God’s divine revelation came mainly through clerical leaders—not the laity. In Reformed Faith churches, lay elders may be the bulwark defending the church from vulnerability to straying. This is not intended to be anti-clerical—simply recognizing a historical reality that is unrelenting yet today. Sadly, reports coming out of trusted conservative seminaries indicate the threat exists; this article is not about that phenomenon. Rather it’s about a book promoting biblical analysis and discernment that elders need to be sensitive to and on guard against a present danger.
The book is Dangerous Affirmation: The Threat of “Gay Christianity written by M. D. Perkins. I received it courtesy of David H. Linden to whom the book is dedicated with these words: “. . . who . . . taught me that life is too short and Christ is too precious to remain silent when His church is under attack.” The author and to whom it’s dedicated are both “sturdy defenders for the truth.”
Anyone reading The Aquila Report and other Christian resources is aware a battle has come to the church via the LGBT activists and agenda. It’s not only related to sexual morality. It relates to a misnomer of Christian identity, i.e., “gay Christian” or “same-sex attracted Christian.” It’s tearing churches and denominations apart. Many congregations remain ignorant of how serious an issue it is. Members lack clear instruction via sermons, oral instruction, or published communications. If lay elders were informed and aware of the seriousness, perhaps congregations would become more instructed and discerning.
Packed with innumerable facts and biblical truths, justice cannot be attained in a simple review; but I’ll attempt to cite certain key points not to be ignored. First, an important lost principle. Much emphasis is directed on loving the sinner, making the sinner comfortable, welcoming the sinner in our churches and times of worship that the inordinate heinousness of certain dishonorable, indecent, shameful sexual desires, lusts, passions, and sexual acts are softened or ignored. It was Jesus’ Father who described all of the above with harsh terms. God’s love enters as a result of a lost sinner experiencing remorse, shame and sorrow for sin, confession, desiring to repent and cease from sin, and desiring deliverance and redemption. That’s true for all of us regardless of sinful propensities. Balancing truth with love and truth in love to all realizing how far from God’s holy character they are and what God hates is primary in receiving Christ’s atonement. We mustn’t get the cart before the horse.”
Now to some of the author’s revealing facts:
- The sources to which “gay Christians” constantly appeal—secular psychology, sociological data, identity theory, and the personal experiences of people who identify as sexual minorities—are not sufficient to guide us into all truth. . . If the Bible is God’s holy, inerrant, and clear revelation, then it is the foundation of all that we should believe and do—regardless of anyone’s contrary personal experience.
- . . . the purpose of Christian theology is to know God.
- Gay celibate theology wants to essentialize homosexual temptation to the point it is left untouched by the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Love and truth are redefined. The majesty of God is minimized and the holiness of God is outright blasphemed.
- As Christians, our primary concern should be the character of God—and questioning the integrity of His Word is the first step toward impugning the character of God.
- Romans 1 is the central text in understanding the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality. The passage mentions the desire/orientation (“dishonorable passions”) as well as the behavior (“committing shameless acts”) lesbianism (“for their women”) . . . and the connection of sexual lust and rejecting God (“God gave them up”).
- This comes as a rebuke to anyone who claims their homosexuality is innate and immutable, which is why even “gay celibate Christians” resist this reading of 1 Corinthians 6:11.
- Words matter, and God’s words matter more than any others.
- It is not loving to call something good and right that the Bible labels an “abomination,” “dishonorable passion,” or “shameless act”
- . . . same -sex attraction . . . it is a phrase that removes the moral framework that Paul embeds in the term dishonorable passions (Romans 1: 26)
- Because homosexuality is wicked and defiling, Christians are right to be disgusted at its normalization and celebration (Isaiah 5:20)
- If we look carefully, we see that the charge of homophobia is ultimately an attempt to replace the shame of homosexuality with the approval stamp of victimhood.
- What if our attempts to adjust the worship of God to make people feel more comfortable at church are an offense to the One who established the church?
- What’s most amazing to me about the “born gay” phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter.
- . . . but our temptations should not ultimately define us.
- But the peace of Christ is available only to those who are surrendered to Christ by faith (Isaiah 26: 3)
- False teachers always appeal to our senses, to our emotions, and to our base instincts. They minimize scripture, reframe it, change the emphasis, and twist it until it is forced to confess a lie.
- Can the Christian faith and the LGBT movement really live in harmony? “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
The aforementioned represents just some of the rich and vast coverage the author gives in order to grapple with the multitude of issues requiring attention for the sake of the church as well as the individual believers. There’s so much more to inform and instruct. Lay elders, encourage the godly men and women of the church to be “sturdy defenders for the truth” along with you.
“I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1: 3-4)
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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How Our View of Ourselves Should Influence Our Approach to Money
Proverbs 30 is so beautifully balanced. It recognizes the reality that we need money, and it recognizes the danger that money presents. And so the prayer is founded in a sober estimation of oneself – don’t give me too much, and don’t give me too little. Because I might be prone to sin in either case. In the end, this is the prayer of faith when it comes to money. It is a prayer that acknowledges that inasmuch as we don’t know ourselves, God does.
“Just follow your heart.”
It’s the stuff that Disney movies are made of. It’s about actualizing yourself and your potential; it’s about living your dreams; it’s about living happily ever after. It’s also a terrible piece of advice. That’s because I can’t trust my own heart. And neither can you.
If it’s happened once, it’s happened a thousand times to me. I do something, something (dare I say) good for someone else, and then in retrospect find that I didn’t really do that thing for them, but for myself. It was so that others would see me doing it. It was to garner praise from the person I was helping. It was to impressively display my aptitude or compassion for another. It happens all the time. And every time it happens, I’m reminded of that same fact which is in equal parts true and disturbing:
I cannot trust my own heart.
The prophet Jeremiah knew that truth, experienced that truth, and summarized that truth like this:
“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable–who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:6).
Can we trust ourselves? Heavens no – we don’t even really know ourselves. And that lack of self-knowledge can go both ways. Sometimes we dramatically underestimate ourselves. We think too little of our faith, courage, resolve, or abilities and therefore never really take a chance or risk. And then sometimes we dramatically overestimate ourselves and end up underdelivering on those same qualities. Somehow, we have to stand in the middle of those things – to not think too highly or too lowly of ourselves. To see ourselves, as Paul tells us, with “sober judgment”:
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What Hath Bethlehem to Do with Washington?
Both the cosmic and personal nature of Christmas both motivates and tempers our politics. Empowered by the Spirit, we love our neighbors by upholding the creational truths Jesus’ birth affirms. Yet our activism is tempered by the reality of what we can actually accomplish in a cosmos still groaning for redemption. Only Jesus can bless “far as the curse is found.”
It’s the time of year when Washington, D.C., sits largely quiet and empty, its inhabitants emptied out and headed home to their families. The politicians head home and even the most rabid partisans seek to escape the messiness of politics.
Yet the real story of Christmas is inescapably political. The young virgin who bore Jesus understood what her miraculous conception meant. She listened to the words of Simeon in the temple as he cradled the newborn in his arms. Jesus would, “be a sign that will be opposed—and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (Luke 2:34-35).” The incarnation, then, is more than mere sentimental Hallmark vibes, but a cosmic disruption, an intervention by God into His creation.
Even as Christmas is inescapably political, our politics should be inescapably oriented around Christmas. If what Christians believe about the incarnation is true, then that truth must necessarily shape our public theology. The ethicist Oliver O’Donovan rightly asserts that “the whole created order is taken up into the fate of this particular representative man at this particular moment of history, on whose one fate turns the redemption of all…the sign that God has stood by his created order.”
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Assurance of Salvation
I was a serial go-to-the-fronter during the 1980s, first as a kid, and then as a teenager. As a fourteen-year-old, I’d already “prayed the prayer” on multiple occasions. I went to the front at a Billy Graham rally and said the prayer. I went to the front at a Luis Palau meeting and said the prayer. I sat with head bowed at numerous churches, in numerous denominations over the years, and said the prayer. I said it ever more fervently, ever more anxiously, and often with tears. And I kept praying and going to the front because I was never entirely convinced that I’d prayed and gone to the front enough.
What would you say to fourteen-year-old Barry, once you’d told him to get rid of that ridiculous fluff on his upper lip? Many Christians, I think, would say something like this: “As long as you were sincere when you prayed the prayer, you are saved.”
The thing is, looking back, I’m really not sure I was.
It wasn’t until I was twenty, and in my second semester at university, that I felt a deep, inner assurance that I was truly saved.
Where did that suddenly come from? According to Scripture, this profound inner sense of assurance is something that the Holy Spirit gives us.
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